


Troposphere

by Raelynn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, But Sherlock..., Casual Sex, F/M, Molly's not pining anymore, Pining, Sherlock has feelings and no idea what to do with them, but sherlock's not casual about anything, this is pretty much the opposite of a slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:28:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5413385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raelynn/pseuds/Raelynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adrenaline is a powerful drug, and when Sherlock and Molly barely escape when being chased through London on foot, the excitement leads them to the bedroom at Baker Street. </p><p>But Sherlock Holmes doesn't do relationships, so Molly lets herself out and heads home.</p><p>Leaving Sherlock alone and confused about what's going on in that giant brain of his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Feet pounding on the pavement, her small hand tangled in his large fingers as he dragged her down the London pavement. Molly Hooper struggled to keep up with the long strides of the man leading her in a zig-zag pattern down back alleys and footpaths, until finally he pulled her into the shadows between two buildings, yanking her close against him and peering out over the top of her head, ascertaining whether or not they’d eluded their pursuers. 

She struggled to catch her breath, trying to remain quiet as she panted, burying her face in his chest to muffle the sounds. He froze, and looked down at her. She continued to heave, and he directed his attention back out into the street, but after a moment decided that they’d escaped.

Molly, noticing the tenseness leave his body, stepped back from him, looking up at him. Her apology died on her lips, however, as she saw how he gazed down at her. Before she could register what was happening, his lips crashed onto hers, and soon she was clutching him again, their mouths furiously slashing against each other, her breath once again taken away.

He remembers little of the cab ride back to Baker Street. He’d grabbed her hand again and dragged her out to the street, fumbling with his phone to summon a cab and then keeping her pulled tight against his side while they waited. Into the cab, hands roaming but not enough to pique the interest of the cabbie, who was all too happy to accept the overly-large tip Sherlock shoved at him in his rush to get Molly Hooper upstairs and into his flat.

Which he did post haste, practically dragging her up the stairs. The moment the door was shut behind them, Sherlock whirled, Molly’s back to the door and gazing up at him in surprise. He stopped, then, common sense winning out over the hormones ravaging his body. “Um, unless you don’t want to…” he says, his hands flapping, words failing him. He peers down at her, deducing.

She consents by reaching up and grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him down to her. Their lips meet again, and she’s pressed between the door and his body, his hands roaming, clumsily trying to get her coat off of her shoulders. Eventually realizing that it isn’t going anywhere if she’s against the door, he takes a step back, releasing her, and she shrugs out of the coat, primly hanging it on the hook next to the door.

This act of domesticity startles him for a moment, but only for a moment before she’s lunged at him again, pushing his Belstaff off and onto the floor - not so much care when it’s someone else’s clothing, eh, Hooper - he thinks, but the thought is gone like a soap bubble as her hands roam down his chest, the sensation of her nails through the thin silk shirt he’s wearing a welcome foothold to reality as his brain spins.

Her hands come to a rest at his slim hips, and she stares up at him, and for once he feels like he’s the one being deduced. He stares, not even sure himself what is going on his head. He idly wonders what she sees when she looks. Maybe she could tell him how he’s feeling, because he has no idea.

Well, he knows one way he’s feeling, and that’s the one he can deal with, so he pulls her along, through the kitchen and into the bedroom, where she kisses him again and then begins stripping. He watches, for a moment, as each piece of clothing comes off, revealing a surprising amount of curves for someone as thin as Molly Hooper. She’s down to her panties and bra before she meets his eyes, and it’s then that he realizes he’s still standing there, trousers, shirt and shoes. He begins to undress, and he preens a bit to notice that she’s stops and watches him, enjoys watching him revealing himself to her as much as he’d enjoyed watching her disrobe. He’s down to his pants when she reaches behind her to flick the clasp of her bra, and he can no longer stand to be three feet apart. Two long strides and he’s against her, mouth where her neck meets her shoulder, kissing and sucking and then, when her moans start, biting. Quickly deducing that the adrenaline of the chase has not quite worn off either of them yet, he’s bolder, biting on her shoulders and guiding towards the bed. She bumps against it with the back of her legs and does not hesitate to collapse upon it, pulling him down on top of her as their legs dangle off the side.

Kisses become love bites, caresses become gropes, as they explore each other’s body with a great need. At some point, both of their pants come off, and she’s straddling his thighs, leaned over and biting at his nipples, his cock pressed between them. He’s helpless under her, as she bites and sucks and her hands are everywhere at once. She grinds herself against him, his moans and half-bitten back cries like music to her ears, and just as he thinks he can’t stand it anymore, he summons his strength and flips them over, trapping her thighs between his, her wrists in his hand above her head, his teeth dragging across first one nipple and then the other one. 

She squirms beneath him, moaning between whispers of his name, and he thinks he’s never seen her look so beautiful before.

He freezes, then, her left nipple still in his mouth. Molly squirms beneath him, and says “Stop thinking, Sherlock,” and surprisingly, he obeys, letting the thought drift away like smoke in the London air. The moment, this moment, be in this moment, he tells himself, and soon he’s kissing his way down her abdomen, stopping to playfully lick at her belly button before he’s got his face buried between her legs and neither one of them is thinking about much of anything at all.

Her hands are tangled in his hair, and she’s grinding herself against his face as she comes, his name spilling from her lips. He climbs up next to her, and she’s pressing her mouth to his, kissing him deep and tasting herself on his lips and tongue. “My turn,” she whispers, moving to take him, but he stops her, gently. 

“Need you,” he says, and she nods, opening her legs to him again as he rolls on top of her, guiding himself into her wet, warm and willing heat. She feels magnificent around him, and he stills for a moment, enjoying the sensation, before she’s squirming beneath him and he knows it’s time to move.

It is not slow, or soft, but it is exactly what the two of them want, and the noises and the sighs and the moans and the slap of skin against skin fills the room as the two of them ride out their pleasure between them. She’s pulling his hair and he’s pulling her bottom off the bed, angling her hips just right so he can go deeper, harder. She’s begging for more and he’s giving her everything, and by the end he’s collapsed onto her, their mouths against each other, not kissing, exactly, but swallowing each other’s moans as they fuck. 

Molly tips over first, and the utter look of bliss on her face as she groans out his name is enough to send him over after her, a few quick thrusts before he stills, spilling inside her with a loud groan. He holds himself by his arms, staring down at her for a few moments, before finally pulling out of her and collapsing next to her on the bed.

They’re quiet for a moment, recovering, and then she speaks.

“I’m on the pill.”

It takes him a moment to decipher her words, as if she were speaking a foreign language, but eventually he susses it out. “Oh, right. Uh, I didn’t even think…”

Molly shrugs, her skin goosebumping as the sweat cools on her body. “S’okay. I did. It’s a woman thing, you know. Bit higher cost for us if we don’t.”

Sherlock concedes that this is true, if unfair, and they lay there for a few more moments, the tension in the room growing. 

It’s Molly who breaks it. “Mind if I use your shower?” she says, and he tells her where the clean towels are and she’s up and through the door to the bathroom before he can really stop and think about what just happened. Eventually he stands and slips his underpants back on and grabs a pair of pyjama bottoms, putting them on before gathering up her clothing they’d left on the floor. When she comes back from the bath, wrapped in one of his towels (the green one, he notes), he is sitting on the edge of the bed, face buried in his phone. He looks up, and indicates her clothing next to him - he’d folded it neatly for her. She smiles, and finishes drying off and slips into it, sitting on the chair in his room and finger combing her hair.

The moment is awkward, he knows it is. This is why he’s avoided these things in the past. Even casual sex is awkward afterwards and soon she’s content with the state of her hair, and stands, slipping into her shoes.

She walks over and stands before him, and he looks up, dropping the phone onto the bed next to him. 

She’s deducing him again. He watches her eyes skim over him, before she leans down and places a chaste kiss on his cheek. “That was phenomenal,” she says. “This whole day was pretty action packed, I guess you’d say.”

She chuckles at her own joke, and he opens his mouth, no idea what he’s going to say.

Nothing, apparently, as he closes his mouth again, and she smiles fondly at him. “Anyway, that’s not usually something I do, but I guess we both got over excited. It’s late, though, and I have an early shift. I’ll get a cab. Get some sleep, I know this case has had you up for days.”

And before he can say anything, she’s out the bedroom door and he hears the door to the flat closing behind her. He quickly moves into the sitting room, watching out the window to make sure she safely makes into into cab, and then he collapses into his chair.

Now what?


	2. Chapter 2

Despite Molly’s imploring him to get some sleep, the case had not been solved when he and Molly had outrun their pursuers, and after the cab drove off with Molly tucked safe inside, Sherlock got back to work. The case took him another two days to solve, during which he slept little, ate less, and if he’d stopped to admit it to himself, thought of Molly more than seemed necessary.

So by the time the case took him to the morgue at Barts on the third day, he was exhausted, running on coffee and nicotine patches, and had almost but not quite managed to push his interlude with Molly to the back of his head.

Right up until he walked into the morgue where Molly and Lestrade were discussing the body on her slab, and he felt a pang in his chest. He froze in the doorway, trying to decide what it was. He realized with a start that it was jealousy - he was jealous of Lestrade, standing close to Molly, their heads together as she showed him something or other on the corpse.

Sherlock sighed, ran his hands through his hair, and continued walking into the room, swishing in with his Belstaff. “Gavin, Molly,” he said, nodding to each of them before shoving his way between them to look at the body. “What have you found?”

Molly gave him a sharp look and stepped around to the front of the slab, making room for the Detective. “I finished the autopsy but Greg said you wanted to see the body before I closed it up, so there you go.” She indicated the body, and then stepped away. 

Sherlock grunted and peered in. “He was acting alone,” he said, turning away and stalking back towards the door.

Molly and Lestrade watched him, stunned, as he made his way out. Lestrade turned to her. “Do you have any idea what that was all about?”

Molly swallowed, and looked away. “No.” she said. “I need to get him closed up so we can transfer him.”

Lestrade opened his mouth as if he had something to say, and then thought better of it, and nodded. “Okay, catch you later.”

Sherlock had left the morgue and gone to his favorite stairwell. It was out of the way enough that no one ever took it from the ground floor down to the morgue, so he could always be assured of being left alone. In the past, he’d used it to smoke, but today he slid to the ground and pouted, staring off into space. 

“This is your own fault,” he muttered to himself. “You know better than to get involved. You know better than to care, and you certainly know better than to get physical with people.”

Sherlock stayed there for a half hour. He needed to pull himself together. Molly Hooper was just a woman, like any other woman. Yes, she once had harbored feelings for him, but those days were long past. She’d seen through his disguise, seen who he really was inside, and those feelings had disappeared as quickly as they’d started. Women wanted Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. Molly had been around him enough to see what he was really like, the part of him deep inside he had cultivated his exterior to hide. The part of him that had feelings - who felt things too much.

No one wanted that person, not Molly, not even himself. He’d let her get too close, and now that she knew who he really was, she had been able to have an hour of mind-blowing sex with him, and then gather her stuff and skip off home. 

And it was exactly what he deserved.

Sighing, he stood, smoothing his trousers and wrapping his Belstaff around him again. He took the stairs two at a time up and made his way down the corridor. Slipping out one of the side doors, he made his way to the street to flag down a cab to take him home.

“Sherlock?” a small voice behind him. He turned.

“Molly,” he said, trying to be casual. 

“I thought you left a while ago,” she said, shifting her oversized bag from one shoulder to the other. 

Sherlock shrugged. “I was visiting members of my Homeless Network who stay nearby.”

Molly nodded. “Okay. Well, congrats on solving the case.”

Sherlock nodded, “It was a little more difficult than I expected, but in the end, I was successful.”

Molly fidgeted. Sherlock turned to flag down a passing cab. It pulled up, and stopped. “This one’s for you,” he said, indicating the cab. “I’ll get the next one.”

Molly looked at the cab and back to Sherlock, “Sure, okay. Thanks.” She smiled at him, a small, fast smile that didn’t quite make it to her eyes, and then she slid into the backseat of the cab and then she was gone. Sherlock watched the cab pull away, and then turned and decided to walk back to Baker Street to clear his head.

Sherlock avoided Barts after that, even turning down a case Lestrade called him about. A week later he was at the Watsons’, watching his goddaughter Joanne toddle around the sitting room, when there was a knock at the door. Mary opened it.

“Molly! How great to see you!”

“Hi, Mary! I was shopping a couple days ago and I found the cutest dress for Joanne, and I wanted to make sure I got it to you before too long.” Sherlock watched them at the front door out of the side of his eye. Molly handed a small parcel to Mary. 

“Do you want to come in? Sherlock’s here and we’re just having tea and playing with the baby, waiting for John to get home from the surgery.”

Molly froze, looking past Mary and seeing Sherlock. “Um….sure. I can stay for a while.” Mary opened the door the rest of the way and took Molly’s coat from her. While she hung it up, Molly made her way into the sitting room and scooped up Joanne. “Hey, darling!” she said. Sherlock sat quietly, watching her play with the baby. Eventually Joanne squirmed to be put down, and Molly set her back on the floor, and looked up at Sherlock.

“You haven’t been to Barts in a while. Cases keeping you busy?” she asked.

Sherlock looked at her, deducing. “Late night, Molly?”

Molly narrowed her eyes, and then shrugged. “Coffee date turned into dinner turned into a movie,” she said. “Not super late, but I had to be up early for my shift this morning.”

If Sherlock had been honest with himself, he’d been jealous the moment she mentioned having had a date. But Sherlock was excellent at not being honest with himself. He was also excellent at being cruel, and he lashed out.

“Did you let him take you home, too?” he spat. “Guess it’s just a trend with you.”

Mary had reached the door of the sitting room when she heard this. She looked from Sherlock to Molly, and saw the tears building in the woman’s eyes. 

“Fuck you, Sherlock,” said Molly, standing. “Or rather, I wish I hadn’t. Once again, you don’t care about anyone but yourself. Excuse me for trying to find someone who actually cares about me.”

She turned, and saw Mary in the doorway. “Apologies for my language,” she said, pushing past Mary to dig her coat out of the coat cupboard Mary had just hung it up in. She pulled out her coat and rushed to the door, the door slamming behind her before she’d managed to get both arms into the sleeves.

Mary turned back to the sitting room. “Sherlock Holmes, what on EARTH did you DO?” She came in and sat down on the chair across from the sofa. “Spill it.”

It took a while to get the whole story out. In the meantime, John had come home, and Mary filled him in on what she’d managed to get out of the Detective. 

“So, in short,” said Sherlock, “It’s best that she hate me, because I’d rather she hate me than have to deal with being friendly with her and watching her move on. She knows who I am, and what I’m like, and it’s ridiculous for me to moon after her like a teenager with a crush. Its better if we just make a clean break and I can get back to my work.”

Mary and John exchanged a look. “Do you...do you even believe a word of what you just said?” said Mary. “Because I’m pretty sure you don’t believe a word of what you just said.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, “She’s over me, Mary. And she should be. I’m no good for her, and she knows it.”

Mary stood up and left the room. Sherlock looked at John, questioningly. John shrugged.

Mary came back, Sherlock’s Belstaff in her arms. She walked over to Sherlock and dropped it onto his lap. “Get out. Go to her. Talk to her, like an adult. The two of you have been mooning over each other since long before I came along, and I’m not going to let the two of you both be miserable because you are incapable of having an adult conversation.”

Sherlock sighed, and stood, slipping into his coat. 

“I mean it. Go. Now.”

Sherlock bent and picked up Joanne, dropping a kiss on her cheek. “There’s a reason your mother and my mother get along,” he said. “Neither one of them will let me get away with anything.”

He set her down, and turned back to Mary. “This is a bad idea.”

Mary declined to respond, simply pointing toward the door. Sherlock sighed, and made his way outside.


	3. Chapter 3

He gave the cabbie Molly’s address, and then texted her. 

On my way over. Mary says we need to talk. -SH

Fine.

Sherlock sighed and shoved his phone into his inside coat pocket. He paid the cabbie when he arrived, and made his way up the stairs to Molly’s flat. He could tell the door was unlocked, but he thought twice and knocked anyway.

“You knocked, I’m impressed,” said Molly, opening the door. “Come in.”

She’d put a cup of his favorite tea on the side table next to the chair in her lounge. She took her spot on the sofa, and waited.

Sherlock sipped his tea. Molly stirred hers and sipped at it.

Sherlock realized that Molly Hooper could out-stubborn him, and finally he opened his mouth. “You left.” he said, simply.

Molly frowned. “You insult me, and you’re stunned that I didn’t stick around for more?”

“No, no.” said Sherlock, mentally berating himself for being imprecise. “Baker Street. You couldn’t get out of there fast enough. That night.”

Molly nodded and set down her tea. “I left before you realized what you did, and made things worse.”

It was Sherlock’s turn to frown. “I knew what I did.”

“I knew you’d regret it.” she shrugged. “And your behavior since then shows that I was right. So I’m not sure why we’re having this conversation. You made a mistake, it happened, I’m not going to worry about it. I stopped expecting anything out of you a long time ago, Sherlock. I know where I stand with you. We got carried away. I know it doesn’t mean anything.”

Sherlock took a deep breath. “I don’t.”

Molly looked up at him. “You don’t what?”

“Regret it. The only thing I regret is not stopping you from leaving.”

Molly stared at him.

“I should have stopped you from leaving. But it wasn’t until you were leaving that I realized I didn’t want you to leave.”

Once he started talking, the words came easier, and he poured it all out as Molly sat, watching him. “You were leaving, and then I realized that I didn’t want you to go, I wanted to hold you and assure you that I meant it, that maybe all the adrenaline caused it to happen, but it wasn’t just that. Adrenaline alone wouldn’t have done that and then you were gone and I realized that the tables had turned. You weren’t in love with me, and I was in love with you.”

Molly started laughing, a deep, loud belly laugh. She wiped tears from her eyes as she tried to get herself under control. Sherlock squirmed. 

“Sherlock,” she said, trying to catch her breath, “Do you actually think there is any possible way I could get over you? I ended an engagement because you were living in the same CITY as me again, and I couldn’t bear the thought of being with someone else while you were in my life.”

She took a deep breath. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed at you, it’s just...that was not what I was expecting from you. At all.”

Sherlock set down his tea, and stood from the chair, walking over to the sofa and looking down at Molly. She looked up at him, her big eyes wide.

“Molly, I once told you that you mattered the most to me. At the time, I thought I was talking about your part in faking my death. At the time, I thought a lot of things that were wrong.”

He indicated the spot on the sofa next to her. “May I?”

Molly smiled, “Please.”

Sherlock settled himself down, turning sideways to look at Molly. “I’ve spent most of my adult life thinking that personal relationships weren’t worth having. But in the last years, I’ve realized that even as I said those things, I didn’t really believe it. My admiration for Lestrade. My love for Mrs. Hudson. My friendship with John.”

He paused, then reached out and took one of her hands in his two larger ones, squeezing gently. “And you. You, Molly. You’ve always been there for me, you’ve always cared about me, supported me. In my Mind Palace, you helped me when I was shot. I knew I could trust you to save my life.

“And that day, when I watched you climb into that cab and go home, and I realized that I didn’t regret what happened, that I wanted nothing more than to climb back into bed with you - not even just for sex, but to hold you, be with you…”

Sherlock trailed off, looking down at their hands. “So, I guess what I’m trying to say, is…”

Molly leaned in, gently brushing her lips against his. “I love you too, Sherlock.”

“I was going to say it,” he murmured. 

Molly leans in for another kiss. “I’m not stopping you,”

Sherlock grinned, and reached over and pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her soundly. 

“Molly,” he said, punctuating each word with a kiss. “Hooper. I. Love. You.”

Molly smiled against his kisses, and then extricated herself from his grip. “Bedroom,” she said, standing up. She reached out a hand to him, which Sherlock happily took, standing up and scooping Molly into his arms. 

She squealed as he carried her down the hall to her bedroom. “I promise I won’t drop you,” he said, turning at her door to push it open with his bottom. “Never.”

Molly smiled at him, and when he lay her down on the bed, she immediately pulled him down after her. 

“I hope you didn’t have any plans of returning to Baker Street tonight,” she said with a gleam in her eye.

“Definitely not,” said Sherlock, leaning over to nibble on her ear. “I’ve got plans to be right here. And here. And here.”

Molly moaned as his nibbles moved from her ear to her neck to her shoulder.

“Good plan,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the end! I was going to write more smut, but the smut from the first chapter was so perfect, I thought I'd just leave it as is. Don't hate me, there's lots more smut coming in other stories. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Steve Burns song, Troposphere, which has always made me think of relationships that don't work because people can't communicate and get their shit together. So, you know. Sherlolly. :P


End file.
